How to Use This Checklist
Work through these 40 items in order — crawlability first, then indexation, then page experience, then structured data. Fix critical issues before moving to enhancements. Each section is ordered by priority within its category.
Tools you'll need: Google Search Console (free), Screaming Frog or a similar crawler (free for up to 500 URLs), PageSpeed Insights (free), and a browser with developer tools. For deeper analysis, SE Ranking and Moz Pro both include site audit tools that automate many of these checks.
Crawlability (Items 1–10)
1. Verify robots.txt exists and isn't blocking critical pages. Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt directly. Common mistake: blocking /wp-admin/ is fine, but blocking /wp-includes/ can prevent CSS and JS from rendering.
2. Check XML sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console. Sitemaps should auto-update when you publish new content. If yours is static, set up dynamic generation.
3. Confirm sitemap URLs return 200 status codes. Sitemaps containing 404 or 301 URLs waste crawl budget and signal poor site maintenance.
4. Audit for redirect chains (A → B → C should be A → C). Each hop in a chain loses a small amount of link equity and adds latency.
5. Find and fix broken internal links (404s). Screaming Frog's "Response Codes" report surfaces these instantly.
6. Check canonical tags point to the correct preferred URL. Self-referencing canonicals on every page is the safest default.
7. Verify hreflang tags are correctly implemented (if multilingual). Hreflang errors are among the most common technical SEO issues — and among the hardest to diagnose.
8. Confirm pagination uses rel="next/prev" or canonical correctly. Google has deprecated rel=next/prev as a signal but proper canonicalization still matters.
9. Check for orphan pages (no internal links pointing to them). These are invisible to crawlers navigating your internal link graph. Our internal link analyzer surfaces orphans and maps link equity distribution in one pass.
10. Verify crawl budget isn't being wasted on faceted navigation or duplicate params. Use URL parameter handling in GSC to tell Google which parameters to ignore.
Indexation (Items 11–20)
11. Check "noindex" isn't set on pages you want indexed. A single misplaced noindex tag can deindex your highest-traffic page.
12. Confirm meta robots tags match your indexation intent. Audit every template in your CMS — sometimes default settings apply noindex to categories or tags.
13. Verify GSC shows no manual actions. Manual actions are rare but devastating. Check monthly.
14. Check for duplicate content issues (www vs non-www, HTTP vs HTTPS, trailing slash). Pick one canonical version and redirect all variants.
15. Confirm thin content pages are either improved, noindexed, or canonicalized. Thin pages dilute your site's quality signals.
16. Check for keyword cannibalization (multiple pages targeting the same query). Use GSC's Performance report filtered by query to spot URLs competing for the same terms.
17. Verify parameter handling is configured in GSC. Unhandled URL parameters create infinite crawl paths on e-commerce and filtered listing sites.
18. Confirm 301 redirects are in place for all changed URLs. Audit your redirect inventory — stale redirects to deleted pages create soft 404s.
19. Check index coverage report in GSC for excluded pages. The "Excluded" tab reveals pages Google chose not to index and why.
20. Verify site is accessible to Googlebot (not IP-restricted). Test with GSC's URL Inspection tool's "Test Live URL" feature.
Page Experience (Items 21–30)
21. Measure LCP — target under 2.5 seconds. The biggest LCP killer is unoptimized hero images. Serve WebP/AVIF and preload the LCP element. Run your top pages through our page speed checker for a prioritized fix list.
22. Measure CLS — target under 0.1. Add explicit width/height to images and reserve space for ads before they load.
23. Measure INP — target under 200ms. Long JavaScript tasks blocking the main thread are the usual culprit.
24. Confirm HTTPS with valid SSL certificate. Hosts like SiteGround include free SSL with auto-renewal — no excuse for expired certs.
25. Check mobile viewport meta tag is present. Without it, mobile rendering breaks entirely.
26. Test tap target sizes on mobile (minimum 44x44px). Small buttons and tightly packed links frustrate mobile users and hurt engagement signals.
27. Verify font sizes are legible on mobile (minimum 16px body text).
28. Check for intrusive interstitials on mobile. Google penalizes popups that cover the main content on mobile, especially on the first interaction.
29. Confirm images have explicit width/height attributes. This prevents CLS by reserving space during page load.
30. Verify lazy loading is implemented for below-fold images. Native browser lazy loading (loading="lazy") is the simplest approach.
On-Page SEO (Items 31–35)
31. Every page has a unique title tag (50–60 chars). Duplicate titles across pages is a common CMS default — audit and fix. Use our title tag optimizer to check pixel width and keyword placement.
32. Every page has a unique meta description (150–160 chars). Pages without descriptions get auto-generated snippets that rarely optimize for CTR.
33. H1 tag is present and contains primary keyword. One H1 per page, matching the content's topic.
34. Images have descriptive alt text. Alt text serves accessibility and image search — don't skip it or keyword-stuff it.
35. Internal links use descriptive anchor text (not "click here"). Anchor text tells Google what the linked page is about.
Structured Data (Items 36–40)
36. Homepage has Organization or WebSite schema. This populates Knowledge Panel data and site-level signals.
37. Blog posts have Article schema. Includes author, date published, and date modified — all E-E-A-T signals.
38. Product pages have Product and Offer schema. Unlocks price, availability, and review stars in search results.
39. FAQ sections use FAQPage schema. Earns expandable FAQ dropdowns in SERPs — significant real estate gains.
40. Validate all structured data with Google's Rich Results Test. Schema with syntax errors is ignored entirely.
Audit Frequency
Run this full audit quarterly. Between full audits, monitor GSC's Core Web Vitals and Index Coverage reports weekly — they surface new issues as they appear. Technical debt accumulates faster than most teams realize, and a single bad deploy can introduce crawlability issues that suppress rankings for weeks before anyone notices.
